Deepen the Criticism of Teng Hsiao-ping In Anti-Quake and Relief Work

EARTHQUAKES serve to temper people's revolutionary will. Efforts to conquer difficulties bring heroism into sharper relief. During the present anti-quake and relief work, our people have waged an indomitable fight, stood rigorous tests, worked numerous wonders and won tremendous victories. With the loving care of the Party Central Committee headed by Chairman Mao and under its leadership, the masses of people, cadres and commanders and fighters of the People's Liberation Army fighting in the forefront in the quake-afflicted area have displayed the dauntless Revolutionary spirit of fearing neither hardship nor death, rushing to places where the effects of the earthquake were the most serious and the hazards the greatest. They have carried forward the lofty communist spirit of working in unity and helping one another and risking their own lives to save others. They have demonstrated a high sense of organisation and discipline, showing steadfastness and self-possession and obeying orders in all their actions. The stronger the quake, the harder their efforts — they are brimming with confidence and are high in morale and full of revolutionary optimism. With unstinting support and assistance from the people throughout the country, the Party organizations at all levels in the afflicted area have relied on the masses in waging an all-out struggle to offset the effects of the earthquake and carry out relief work. Maximum efforts have been made to rescue the victimized class brothers. Arrangements have been made to provide the people with clothing, food, accommodation and medical care. The damaged communication lines have been rapidly restored. Production is being resumed step by step in the Tangshan-Fengnan area. The people of Tientsin and Peking are remaining at their posts and grasping revolution and promoting production with still greater drive. The whole affected area is now a revolutionary scene marked by the people's united struggle and determination to conquer nature. Our great leader Chairman Mao has pointed out: "The correctness or incorrectness of the ideological and political line decides everything." The victories won in the anti-quake and relief work have once again confirmed this brilliant truth. To wrest further victories over the disaster, it is essential to take class struggle as the key link, carry on the study of Chairman Mao's important instructions, and resolutely implement Chairman Mao's proletarian revolutionary line. In class society, man's struggle against nature is closely connected with class struggle. The history since liberation has shown that the struggle between the two classes, the two roads and the two lines becomes acute every time a serious natural calamity occurs. Chieftains of the opportunist lines in the Party always try to take advantage of the temporary difficulties brought on by natural calamities to divert the revolution from its course and restore capitalism. To take class struggle as the key link and keep to the socialist road or to liquidate this key link and allow capitalism to spread unchecked, to put proletarian politics in command and have faith in the masses and rely on them or to ignore the human factor and see only the material factor and pay no heed to the wisdom and strength of the masses, to believe firmly that man will conquer nature and carry forward the spirit of self-reliance or to succumb to difficulties, remain passive and pessimistic and sit with folded arms — these are questions of principle on which Chairman Mao's proletarian revolutionary line is diametrically opposed to the revisionist line. During the three years (1959-61 —tr.) when our national economy met with temporary difficulties, Teng Hsiao-ping, the arch unrepentant capitalist-roader in the Party, was scared by the difficulties like Liu Shao-chi, and preached that "whether it is a white cat or a black one, it is a good cat as long as it catches mice." He energetically stirred up a sinister wind for going it alone and reversing past correct verdicts in an attempt to turn back the wheel of history. Chairman Mao sharply criticized the revisionist line of Liu Shao-chi, Teng Hsiao-ping and company, and issued the great call: “Never forget class struggle." It is precisely under the guidance of Chairman Mao's revolutionary line that the Chinese people beat back the onslaught mounted by the bourgeoisie both inside and outside the Party, overcame the effects of the severe natural disasters and kept to the socialist orientation. In the current anti-quake fight and relief work, we should bear in mind this historical experience, persevere in taking class struggle as the key link and deepen the criticism of Teng Hsiao-ping's counter-revolutionary revisionist line. We should use the heroic deeds of the masses of people and cadres in the anti-quake and relief work to criticize his "taking the three directives as the key link" and his other revisionist absurdities. Didn't Teng Hsiao-ping say that only "material incentives" could bring into play the revolutionary enthusiasm of the masses of the people, and that a "material base" was essential in the restriction of bourgeois right? Our heroic people are selfless and fearless; they keep the difficulties to themselves while leaving the conveniences to others, breaking through the narrow confines of bourgeois right and displaying the communist spirit. We should like to ask: Has all this been "stimulated" by "material incentives"? And hasn't all this been achieved before there is a 'material base'?? How reactionary and petty the representatives of the bourgeoisie like Teng Hsiao-ping are in comparison with the revolutionary actions of millions upon millions of people! The site of the anti-quake and relief work is also a battlefield for criticizing Teng Hsiao-ping. We should take the criticism of Teng Hsiao-ping as the motive force to do the anti-quake and relief work well. The revolutionary people armed with Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought can stand the tests of acute class struggle and those of serious natural disasters as well. The heroic workers of the Kailan Coal Mine have put it well: "The imperialists and reactionaries failed to subdue us with guns in the years of war; the bourgeoisie in the Party and all the class enemies failed to destroy us with their onslaughts in the period of the socialist revolution; and the present severe natural disaster also will never overwhelm us.'* The Chinese people, who have been tempered in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and are now advancing triumphantly along Chairman Mao's revolutionary line, have the aspirations, the confidence and the ability to overcome all difficulties by giving play to the spirit of self-reliance, win new successes in the anti-quake fight and relief work, and score still greater victories in the socialist revolution and construction.